Two

2

S A B L E

I SPRINT like I don’t have a twisted ankle and a sprained wrist. I sprint like I’m not covered in painful bruises with the energy level of a factory in nuclear meltdown. Because this is it—this is my only chance to get away from him once and for all, and I will not fail.

Because if I do, he’ll kill me. I know that with dead certainty.

Uncle Clint shouts, his snarl a whip cracking after me. I can’t make out his words through the adrenaline rushing in my ears, and honestly, I don’t even want to try. The coward I was before would have frozen at that tone. I would have turned around and returned to him with my tail between my legs, closing my eyes against whatever punishment he deemed fit.

But I’m not that girl. I refuse to continue to be that girl anymore. I stopped being her the second I opened that car door.

Doctor Patil tried to save me. He wanted to give me the out I needed, and I didn’t take him up on his offer.

So it’s up to me now.

Uncle Clint will chase me. But I’m smaller, quicker, lighter. And my life depends on this. I’ll run until my legs collapse before I let him catch up to me.

The sound of the deer leaping ahead of me is like a beacon in the pitch dark night. I follow that sound beyond the flat plain and into the woods, giving myself over to the wilderness. Uncle Clint’s curses follow me, but they grow weaker as I fly over the thick undergrowth.

My ankle should hurt. I think it does hurt, but there’s too much adrenaline and panic flooding my body for me to feel anything but the desperate burn in my lungs.

Low-hanging branches slap at my arms and face, and I know they’re leaving more marks on my body to add to the ones I already have, but I don’t care. I keep moving, focusing on the sharp inhalations and exhalations of my breath, because if I stop to think, my throbbing injuries will overtake me. I can’t afford to stumble.

Not now. Not so close to freedom.

Before long, my uncle’s string of obscenities peters out. The man’s out of shape and has no business running through the woods. His heavy footfalls fade little by little, until I can’t hear him anymore at all.

A giddy laugh escapes my lips, disappearing into the broad expanse of woods around me.

Jesus. Am I doing this? Really?

My old terror rises when I realize I’ve reached the point of no return. If he finds me now, I’ll pay for it in ways I can’t even imagine. I’ve just done the most terrifying thing I could possibly do—run from my abuser. And if he finds me now, he’ll beat me until I can’t run anymore.

Or worse, until I’m dead.

I can never go back.

A fresh surge of adrenaline pours through me, and I put on another burst of speed. I’ve lost track of the deer, which isn’t too surprising. There’s no way I could run as fast as the buck, and I don’t know the landscape of the forest like he

does. But I’m thankful he was there for a short time and helped give me the clarity I needed to run.

The deer was another Doctor Patil. Another sign from the universe. He saved my life by doing what he does best, and showing me that I could too.

Even though I can no longer hear Uncle Clint pursuing me, I’m not dumb enough to think he’s given up. It’s likely he’s hurrying back to his pickup, where he’ll slam into the driver’s seat and take off to look for me. As long as I stay in the woods and far away from the roads, I should be safe.

But as soon as I have the thought, the woods begin to thin out. I spill onto the narrow shoulder of a road, my sneakers slapping on pavement before I even realize what’s happened. In the same instant that I recognize the yellow lines beneath my feet, headlights flash over me.

I freeze, panic turning me to stone.

The car bearing down on me is nothing but two bright circles of light as its headlights blind me. My mind screams at me to run, to leap off the road, to get out of the way. What if it’s Uncle Clint?

But fear has rendered me incapable of even lifting a finger or turning away so I don’t have to see my death coming.

An ungodly screech emits from beneath the car, and it slings sideways. Not an accidental save this time thanks to a light rear end, as it was for Uncle Clint. A defense maneuver. I have a brief moment to think, Oh, thank God, it’s not a truck, before I realize the car is still coming toward me, skidding sideways as momentum drags it across the pavement.

As if I could somehow stop a moving vehicle, I throw my hands out. The car screeches a moment longer and then halts. My palms slap uselessly against the door, and pain shoots up my injured wrist.

But I’m alive.

My heart is somewhere beneath the car, still fluttering like a terrified bird. I lock gazes with the driver, struck dumb by the fact I almost just died—that I finally made a break for my freedom and nearly lost my life before I could even complete my escape.

The man is… beautiful. Almost inhumanly so. Sharp features, strong jaw, messy black hair, and a five o’clock shadow that’s seen the darker side of midnight.

He looks like some kind of ancient god who rose up out of the darkness and will return there as soon as I blink.

We’re frozen, both of us, gaping at each other for several long seconds as if time has stopped.

I’m not sure who moves first, but in the same instant that he reaches for his seatbelt, I take off toward the other side of the road and the shelter of the woods. My ankle throbs as I crash through the undergrowth and dart around trees.

But I don’t stop.

I run and run, until all hint of civilization is far behind me, until I’m crossing shallow streams instead of roads, until I’m climbing steeply pitched slopes into the foothills. I lose all sense of time and direction. I could be racing headlong into the pits of hell, and I wouldn’t care—I’ll keep going until Clint can’t find me, even if the devil can.

The moon is high, a sliver of light barely breaking through the canopy overhead when I pause and lean against a thick tree trunk to catch my breath. My chest burns as if my lungs are on fire, and my muscles are shaky and weak. I lean over, pressing my hands into my knees, and focus on taking deep breaths. As the adrenaline wears off and the sharp pain of each breath begins to fade, heat rises in my injured ankle. I’ve probably turned the “twist” into a sprain.

Great, I think, straightening and laying my head back against the cool bark. A sprained ankle to match my sprained wrist. I’m stylish as fuck.

I almost laugh again into the darkness, and I have a fleeting worry that I’m losing my mind. I don’t feel like… myself.

My life has been an unending monotony of boredom, fear, and pain for so long that the number of new things that’ve happened tonight leaves me reeling. My mind can’t quite comprehend all of it, and when I try to comprehend the enormity of what I’ve done, something powerful and overwhelming rises up in my chest.

If I let that thing grow too big, I know it will crush me. It will dwarf me, leaving me curled up in a ball on the ground.

So I push thoughts of any future beyond the next few minutes away. That’s all I can handle right now. A minute at a time.

Pressing a hand to the lingering stitch in my side, I scan the dark forest around me.

I’m not sure what my plan is from here, but I don’t want to stay still for too long. I know chances are slim Uncle Clint will find me this deep in the wilderness, but why tempt fate? I can find somewhere to shelter overnight—a cave, or a tree, maybe, so I don’t get eaten by bears.

As I shove away from the tree to get moving, a wave of dizziness crashes over me. I stumble, catching myself against the trunk before I can keel over into the undergrowth. The run took a lot out of me. More than I realized, which is stupid really, considering I’m fresh off a hospital visit.

I lift my head, focusing on the tree as I try to blink away the fog that clouds my vision. There are strange dark lines etched into the bark beneath my palm, and I lift my hand, swaying as I let all my weight settle back on my legs. The trunk is marked with some kind of odd pattern.

Bears, I think, scraping my fingertips down the claw marks. It’s just bears. Not that the idea of bears being nearby

gave me any kind of comfort. And what kind of bears make marks that look so stylized?

My feet are infinitely heavy as I turn and stumble away from the marked-up tree. I couldn’t run now if I tried, but I keep my pace as quick as I can. I trip over my own feet several times, barely able to stay upright, but I manage to move several more yards through the trees. Those strange marks are on a bunch of these trunks, but I’m too tired and strung out to wonder what they are anymore.

The farther I walk, the more my vision tunnels and the woozier I feel. When the ground ahead of me dips downward sharply, I’m not prepared for it. My steps falter, and I stumble, falling forward. I flail, arms thrashing out to my sides for anything I can grab to keep me from hitting the ground.

But the trees have grown farther apart, and I have nothing to hold on to.

I tumble down the side of a ravine, a pained grunt forcing its way out of my lungs as my body rolls over the rough rocks and dirt.

When I come to a stop at the bottom of the ravine, darkness overtakes me.

IT’S STILL DARK when my eyes open again.

My mind is only half-alert, and I have no idea how much time has passed since I blacked out. It could have been minutes or maybe hours.

I can’t seem to move my limbs. I’m on my stomach, my cheek pressed into the dry dirt and my arms tangled beneath me. It’s colder here, and my extremities ache from the chill. My blonde hair is draped over my face, partially obscuring my vision.

But I can see enough to know that I’m not alone.

A shadow prowls toward me on four paws, a glistening snout sni ng at the air. Not a bear, as I expected, but a wolf. It takes a few tentative steps toward me, its giant paws silent on the ground.

Fear prickles at the edges of my consciousness. I’m too hurt, too exhausted to move. I can’t even seem to get an open line of communication between my brain and my arms, even with the fight-or-flight response currently pumping through my body.

So I just close my eyes and hope death comes quickly.

I MUST HAVE PASSED out again.

In my next brief moment of consciousness, which is barely more than a flicker of awareness, I feel strong, warm arms slide around my broken body.

Then I’m lifted, and we’re moving, my head resting against a broad chest and a stranger’s heartbeat.